Sunday 16 September 2012

The Ride Day 8

It is a measure of something, I do not know what, that's a ride of 110 miles seems relatively moderate after what we have been through this week, and particularly yesterday.

Certainly, yesterday's extremes both of length and weather conditions has put everything else into perspective. The general feeling in the account is that if we can manage that we can manage anything and 110 miles holds no fears.

Today was payback time in terms of weather conditions. Although the day started dank and cold it warmed up and within a couple of hours we were riding in bright sun although still with a chilly winter.

I started a bit late and knew that my two riding partners were ahead of me and so put my head down and chased. After about 40 minutes I was caught by a group of four riding faster than me so I latched onto the back of them and the five of us took it in turns to ride in the wind with the other 4 sheltering behind to recover before coming to the front to do their turn. We really hammered it and for about an hour must've been riding at an average speed of close to 25 mph.

Despite this it took almost to the first feed station for me to catch my "team". I knew I'd pay for this later but it was worth it for the exhilaration of speeding along beautiful fast roads with no traffic.

We then rode along the shores of Loch Ness which was unbelievably scenic and then treated ourselves to a cappuccino by the waterfront in Inverness.

We then climbed the moors into Sutherland where we were struck by some really strong crosswinds which were blowing us all over the place but we got down safely to base camp still in lovely sunshine.

So last night in camp and tomorrow we ride to John o'Groats. Hard to accept we have almost done it. Lands End seems light years away.

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